Lily stared at the page in silence. She had thought her question innocent enough, but now Arakil was taking quite a long time to answer.
The extra two glyphs sounded useful, but if she only needed a shield to protect her, the other two features appeared slightly excessive. It also explained why the dire hawk had become such a tragedy; not only did it impact the shield at such a high speed, but it also received a reflection of the impact.
"Kee-eeeee-arr!"
Crunch.
Lily trembled. While she hadn't had the nightmare recently, that sound, in particular, was still relatively fresh. She hoped to never see a dire hawk ever again.
Is there an Aviania demi resembling a hawk? I certainly hope not... Lily wondered to herself.
[Yes. Using only the glyph alone is a viable option and would reduce costs at the expense of some very beneficial features.]
Lily smiled, happy that her idea wasn't foolish.
"Yes, I think they are very, very good. The reflect glyph probably killed the monster after all," Lily replied. "But until we have more Mana, I think we need to be a little cheap. You were asleep for so long after making that inscription."
[That is true. The Mana scarcity took even me by surprise. Normally, I'd say that such costs should be refined to perfection, but perhaps some leeway can be given to focus on frugality.]
"What do you mean?" Lily asked.
[By perfecting every glyph individually and then perfecting the harmony of the entire inscription, you can drastically improve the spell. Whether that be by minimizing the input required or increasing the resulting output. Every mistake or blemish will affect it, and you will either be forced to accept an inferior outcome or a greater cost to compensate.]
"I want to learn more about glyphs, then. They sound super important," Lily responded. "I think I've gotten really good at drawing your inscription, but I still don't understand it. I don't even know which one is the shield glyph."
[Excellent! Your thirst for knowledge continues to impress me. Now is a suitable time to work on your fundamentals, so you can dive right in once we have some glyph ink. To answer your question about the shield glyph, locate the circle with an upside-down triangle in the center.]
Lily turned to the page with the protection spell and quickly located what Arakil described as an upside-down triangle, thanks to all her practice and familiarity with it.
In Lily's opinion, calling it merely a triangle was quite an understatement, but she supposed it was the easiest way for Arakil to point her in the right direction.
If Lily had to describe it, she would probably say it was a triangle with legs and wearing a hat due to the extra lines either attached or millimeters from touching the triangle.
Then, there were all the additional squiggles and shapes around the triangle's circle as well. She wasn't entirely sure what they were, but one of them looked vaguely like a stickman being shot with arrows.
She voiced these thoughts out loud for Arakil to hear before returning to their conversation page and resupplying him with ink.
[Good. I'm glad you recognized and noted some of its construction. That triangle is known as the crest and indicates the primary purpose of the glyph. Then, the markings surrounding the crest are called sigils, which are instructions for telling the crest how to operate. Putting that all together, you get a glyph.]
"Okay! I think I understand what you're saying," Lily replied. She returned to the page and began looking at the glyph again with newfound appreciation.
"Okay, so this is the crest for a shield." Lily pointed to the triangle.
Next, she pointed to the stickman. "I want to guess that this stickman tells the shield to protect a person, but I'm not sure what the arrows mean..."
She also looked at the strange other shapes surrounding the circle. She pointed them out individually before replying. "I'm not sure what these do, but I'm guessing they are more sigils?"
[Very good. You're correct in that it instructs the shield to target a person, while the arrows indicate that it must target the spell's caster specifically. As for the other sigils, they control the shape of the spell, its distance, duration, and so forth.]
"So if I removed the arrows targeting the person, I could cast the shield on someone else?" Lily asked.
[Yes, but if you simply remove them, you'd need to touch them with the glyph as it's being cast. However, you could add two parallel arrows pointing upwards on either side of the stickman to indicate it must target a person in front of you. However, such a sigil can significantly increase the glyph's overall cost.]
Lily's eyes were sparkling with excitement. This sounded so amazing! Just casting a spell was compelling enough already, but if she learned all of this, she could even build her own spell.
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"Why does it make it cost more? Because of the distance?" Lily asked, her curiosity going wild.
[Yes. Each sigil drawn influences the cost; some can even reduce the price by applying a limiting factor. If you imagined the shield crest costing 10 Mana, telling it to target only you would reduce it to 8, whereas the touch version would increase it to 11. A directed, ranged targeting of a specific individual is one of the most expensive sigils, increasing the cost of our shield crest to 20.]
"Amazing! So what if-"
Lily's question was interrupted by a banging on her room door. She let out a squeak and nearly jumped out of her skin.
"Lily! Go to bed!" The muffled voice demanded.
"Sorry! I will!" Lily replied, feeling quite embarrassed.
Lily silently waited to hear the footsteps leaving. When it sounded like the coast was clear, she let out a sigh of relief.
"Sorry Arakil... I better go to bed; we can talk tomorrow."
[While I applaud your enthusiasm, please do not do it at the expense of your well-being. Sleep is very important for a young one's growth and allows the mind to recover and digest knowledge. Goodnight, Lily.]
Now Lily felt doubly as guilty. She hadn't expected Arakil to also give her a scolding. With great reluctance, she climbed into bed before finally succumbing to sleep.
***
Lily's next morning ended up being quite the rush, as she had accidentally slept in. This meant that, regrettably, she had no time to prod Arakil for more answers since she had to frantically get ready and nearly ended up skipping over breakfast.
Thankfully, she didn't arrive late to Camilla's shop, although it was a very close call. When they arrived, Camilla presented a short letter detailing what she expected of Lily and her compensation, which she handed to Margit.
"You're actually not my first shop assistant, believe it or not," Camilla teased when Lily questioned how she had something prepared so quickly.
Margit glanced at it briefly, and when she confirmed that everything was above board, she accepted it. The orphanage director would receive and sign it on Lily's behalf.
Much to Lily's regret, Camilla hadn't found the book she had mentioned yet, so they continued through the basics of identifying some common herbs and remedies. If not for her residual excitement regarding glyphs, crests, and sigils, she might have been more upset.
Even though Camilla was a qualified alchemist since Lily currently lacked Mana, her lessons could only cover herbalism and apothecary work. Not that she intended to teach someone so young genuine potion making, as that put her at risk of losing her license.
Unlike the previous day, there were customers this time, and while Camilla dealt with them, Lily was left to fulfill her promised scribe work. Recreating the labels would have been rather fun for her if not for the struggle of trying to decipher the text.
I hope nobody gets sick if her shaky hands accidentally include some extra portions in her potions.
When things quietened down, Camilla sought to instruct Lily on properly using the mortar and pestle. Lily was actually a little worried about using it since she was so soft and frail, but Camilla reassured her.
"Nonsense child, if this old bag of bones can grind up herbs, even you can," Camilla scoffed. "You just need to use the proper technique. Plus, you'll need it if you ever hope to make that glyph ink."
That provided Lily with ample motivation, and after some initial guidance and demonstration, she soon found herself actually doing it. While working, Lily had a stray thought she accidentally voiced out loud.
"I wonder if I could just grind up the Fairymoss and mix it into ink..."
"Probably," Camilla responded out of nowhere, causing Lily to flinch. "Although I bet it will barely work, if at all. It most likely requires, at minimum, a solvent to dissolve the powdered Fairymoss and perhaps even a catalyst. I understand you're eager, but trust me, the wait will be worth it."
As previously discussed, they stopped early in the afternoon. Camilla closed her shop and proceeded to escort Lily back to the orphanage after first checking that she didn't want to visit a shop. When they reached the orphanage, Lily politely thanked Camilla for her tutelage and for escorting her back home.
Once the coast was clear, she rushed back to her room, eager to pick up where she had left off with Arakil the night before, but not before giving him some of the powdered Fairymoss she had made and telling him about her day.
To Lily's surprise, even the minor processing of the plant had actually increased its efficacy by a fraction—or so Arakil had said. He made sure to request that she grind up any of the plants she planned to bring home with her in the future.
Arakil also agreed with Camilla and told Lily not to waste the Fairymoss or ink by trying to mix it herself. He explained that if the ink was subpar, there was a considerable risk of it failing altogether, and you did not want that to happen.
Lily hastily agreed after that forewarning. Just imagining the protection spell failing at the crucial moment when she needed it was more than enough.
[Besides. I've planned my lessons for you, and we will begin familiarizing you with both crests and sigils and their corresponding usage. I plan to give you a batch of one crest and a few compatible sigils so you can learn how to replicate them. When you've developed sufficiently, I'll supply you with the next crest and sigil set.]
"Yes! Please!" Lily agreed impatiently. "I'm guessing we will start with the shield crest and some sigils that work with it... But what about Glyphs?"
[Correct. The shield crest is a perfect starting point. As for forming a full glyph, that will be something we work on over time. I'll be guiding you closely for your first attempt, but after that, I hope you'll experiment with combinations and designs and present them to me for evaluation.
Even if you sketch them roughly, with mundane ink or pencil, I should be able to assess and predict the outcome. Creativity and innovation are to be nurtured, and I hope that with each sigil you learn, you'll begin thinking of how they can be applied to the current crest or even previous crests.]
Lily was giggling with excitement. It sounded absolutely perfect to her.
Arakil then instructed her to prepare plenty of ink and numerous pages, as he would provide her with the first batch. Lily grabbed her spare bottles from her cupboard and dutifully got to work, supplying Arakil with the ink he required.
She honestly loved watching the ink magically move across the pages and was awed by every perfectly drawn crest or sigil. To her surprise, some of the sigils were repeated but at a different size or length. However, as if anticipating her questioning, Arakil put explanations under them and explained the variations and how they functioned.
In hindsight, her purchase of extra ink was a good move, as they would have run out without it. The ink bottles were practically evaporating between her own practice, Arakil's talking, and now these detailed illustrations.
Hours later, after turning many pages and depositing vast amounts of ink, Lily had a handful of pages in her book dedicated to the shield crest and a bunch of sigils with their explanation written below them.
After cleaning her supplies, she quickly pulled out her pencil and was about to start drawing when her stomach announced its protest.
"Oh... I should probably go have dinner," Lily said, feeling rather embarrassed. It was already evening and she did not want to get scolded again.